Dissecting Ole Gunnar Solskjaer football philosophy

I’ve openly expressed to both my friends and in my previous blog that I think my beloved Cardiff City are going down. I have accepted that, but as a fan, when I put my money where my heart is for the rest of the season, I don’t want to watch my team torn apart and frankly embarrassed like we were against Hull.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is obviously a very astute individual. You wouldn’t be as highly thought of in the game as a future great manager as he is without being so, however from what I’ve seen so far, I’m not sure he’s getting things right tactically.

With the players at his disposal, playing pretty sideways triangle passing football just isn’t going to work. Ok, in theory, we hold onto possession, move the opposition players around, and without the ball the opposing team cannot score right? In theory that’s great, but what happens when you have players where that’s not their natural game? They lose the ball and the opposition counter.

The amount of times I’ve seen us hold the ball in the middle of the park, pass around for a minute, then lose the ball and back off the opposition to get back into position frightens me.

I’m not a tactical genius by any stretch of the imagination, that’s why I’m in the stands not in the dugout, but I am a huge believer in the philosophy of when you lose the ball you work as hard as you can to get it back. Ole seems to adopt the stance of hold your position and let the players come to you, allowing the opposition time on the ball and pick out their passes.

It doesn’t take the ability of a Messi or Ronaldo to close down the opposition and get in their faces, it takes hard work. It forces the opposition to think faster, make quick decisions and breaks up their natural rhythm. We are not doing this, and it’s clear it’s because Ole doesn’t want to play this way.

Ole deep in thought (Picture: Charlie Crowhurst/Getty Images)

Despite everything I’ve said, Ole’s philosophy does excite me as over time I can see Cardiff City being an attractive team to watch, but it’s going to take time and a change in personnel. The plain facts are, at the moment, we have a squad of grafters, players who should be playing in the faces of the opposition forcing mistakes, and using the ability and pace of Noone and Zaha to frighten the opposition.

We’ve had 10 games under Ole, seven league games and three cup matches. In those seven league games, realistically we potentially could have taken points from five of those games, six if you include Manchester United. We have won four points, conceded 16 goals and scored four.

They say statistics can be twisted, but you tell me, on any level, does it sound like Ole is making the right decisions tactically?